Washington, D.C. is the Perfect City for Your Wedding Here’s Why

When it comes to planning a wedding, the factors to consider are more or less endless. Whether you’re trying to decide what design you want for your perfect custom bridal gown, or you’re working out what country you want to go to for the honeymoon, all the options can be overwhelming. And when it comes to the specific place you’re holding the wedding, both city and venue, this couldn’t be more the case.

If your family and friends are spread all across the country, and you want their trip to your wedding locale to be well worth it, then there’s one city you should most definitely consider: Washington, DC. Even if you’re not a history buff, there are plenty of reasons why this city is the perfect place for a wedding:

1 Flights are cheap

Since Washington, D.C. is the nation’s capital, there are always going to be a lot of outbound flights from any American city heading to Washington. And there are a number of airports, too, to choose from. Closest to the city are Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Dulles International Airport – but if your family and friends want to travel on a discount airline such as Spirit or Southwest, then another airport to consider is the Baltimore-Washington International airport, which is slightly farther away but generally cheaper.

From any of these airports that serve 69 million passengers a year, there are many ways to arrive to the city, whether that’s taking the MARC train from BWI or taking the direct metro line from the Dulles airport to get downtown. If large groups of people are traveling together, you’ll even be able to reserve a shuttle and drop everyone off at the hotel together.

2 Accommodations are affordable

Additionally, your guests won’t have to spend too much money on accommodations. Since Washington’s at the center of an entire metropolitan region – made up by Maryland, Virginia, and the district itself – there are many different options for booking hotel rooms for a large group. By using an app such as Skipper, or calling a hotel directly to negotiate a deal, you should be able to get a good deal for your guests.

If you’re committed to having accommodations right in the middle of the nation’s capital, however, then you’re going to want to make sure you check out this list of the best budget hotels in DC. The benefit of booking in these hotels is that they’re walking distance from many of the city’s tourist attractions, such as the Washington Mall. So you can enjoy the city without having to pay the median gross rent of $1,376 a month.

3 There are lots of wedding-friendly venues

Another benefit of the size of Washington DC (with a population of over 600,000 in 2016), and its metropolitan area, is that there are lots of great places you can find for the wedding itself. After all, Washington, D.C. is America’s 6th greenest city–and this ranking comes after cities found in the already-green states of California and Hawaii. Because of its proximity to bodies of water such as the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay, and fourteen national parks in and near the city, it’s no surprise that D.C. is a beautiful area for a wedding.

If you’re more of a cosmo girl, you’ll want to plan your wedding in one of D.C.’s fancy city-based venues, in a federal-style home with period furniture downtown, for example, or a fancy hotel. But because the city’s also surrounded by rural areas, you can also get hitched in an old Southern-style manor or a golf club. Take a look at some options here.

4 It’s a great city to visit

Finally, one of the best things about Washington, D.C. is that there’s so much to do in this city. Because it’s the nation’s capital, many people flock here, whether they’re American students attending law school at Georgetown or tourists from halfway across the world. The Smithsonian museums are free for any art lover or history buff, there are bus tours of the city, explaining all of its history, and, of course, there are famous historical sites nearby, such as Gettysburg and the Arlington Cemetery.

It’s the perfect place for any kind of vacation, so your guests will love the visit. There’s a reason why there were 22 million visitors to the city in 2016 alone. To get inspired, make sure you check out this list of the top ten things to do in Washington D.C., brought to you by TripAdvisor.

As you can see, Washington, D.C. is the ideal city for hosting your wedding, because it’s already one of the hottest tourist destinations in the world. Affordable, historical, and fabulous, this is definitely a place to put on the list.

Have you ever been to Washington, D.C.? What would you recommend for someone planning a wedding there?